More than a third of workers on minimum wage can't afford to shop where they work as gap between wages and inflation rises

A UK’s leading union has renewed its call on the Government to replace the minimum wage with a living wage after a new poll has showed that more than one in three people cannot afford to shop where they work.

Britain’s largest union Unite also said that one in five young workers on a minimum wage admitted to have resorted to a food bank over the past year.

The poll of more than 2,000 workers earning a minimum wage, which is currently £6.31 per hour, comes as separate data showed that the gap between wages and inflation has risen again.

Poverty: One in five young workers on minimum wage said to have resorted to a food bank over the past year

Figures by the Office for National Statistics yesterday showed average earnings increased by just 0.3 per cent over the past year – the lowest in five years – while consumer price inflation rose unexpectedly to 1.9 per cent amid higher food prices.

Unite is fighting for the living wage - currently £8.80 in London and £7.65 elsewhere - to replace the minimum wage as ‘widespread financial insecurity is a feature of everyday life’, with over half low paid workers saying they did not know what they will earn from week to week.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said: ‘Government and business in this country are in danger of contriving a situation where hard work does not pay.

Workers rights: Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner has called on the Government to raise the minimum wage to a living wage

‘Five million UK workers earn less than a living wage, consigned to an insecure income and increasingly shut out of the economy. Many of these workers are employed in the shops and services that populate our high streets, yet they cannot afford to shop where they work.’

Iain McMath, chief executive of Sodexo Benefits and Rewards Services said the growing gap between wages and inflation showed that pay struggled to keep up with the growing economy.

‘The combination of the latest inflation data and ONS labour market statistics show that the widespread financial stress caused by the recession is not a concern that is growing any less relevant in the current, relatively prosperous economic climate’, he said.

Nearly 60 per cent of workers on minimum wage said low paid jobs was all there was out for grabs, with one in three saying they had the skills and experience for better paid work but none was available, according to Unite.

The majority of workers said they would prefer to earn a living wage than having to rely on benefit top ups and believed that their employer could afford to pay them more.

‘The crying shame is that low wage work in this country is no longer the first rung on the employment ladder but actually the first step into a poverty pay trap. People with the skills for better-paid work are not escaping into it because there are no decent jobs around,’ Turner said.

‘Big business in Britain should hang its head in shame. Our major retailers, restaurant chains and hotels could well afford to raise wages, and with it the living standards of the communities they depend on for their profits.

‘The message from this poll to government is clear, too. These workers are looking to you to act because too few boardrooms do. The minimum wage must be the living wage.’

The poll comes as a year-long study by the Living Wage Commission recently found that in the last year alone the number of people living below the Living Wage had risen by 400,000.

Bar and restaurant staff, cleaners, retail sales assistants and hairdressers were amongst the most poorly paid people in the UK, the study said.